


It's A Lot More Fun This Way

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Jack being a weirdo, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 03:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13604496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: The only way Jack can properly deal with the annual Hyperion intern orientation is either through not showing up, or going completely wasted out of his mind. This year, he's got his hands on an exotic alcohol with rumored psychoactive effects, which should lead to some serious fun—and maybe even an unexpected encounter with a surprisingly attractive omega.





	It's A Lot More Fun This Way

**Author's Note:**

> Another omegaverse request on Tumblr, taken from the prompt “I smelled you from across the room and I gotta say, you have the best scent in the history of scents." Enjoy!

Jack usually went to these intern orientations high on something or other, when he actually _did_ go. Most of the time he blew them off—best to start the kids off with a taste of disappointment. It gave them something to _work_ towards. 

He’d been thinking about doing the same thing when he’d gotten a shipment of a liquor he’d been _dying_ to try. According to rumor, the alcohol was distilled from the swollen fruit of a rare succulent on Pasithea, and produced _quit_ e the buzz. Beyond the usual effect of even the best alcohol in Jack’s own personal collection, it apparently had some psychoactive in certain users. Intense euphoria, heightened senses, a pleasant, dizzying delirium—if nothing else, it would make the meeting a hell of a lot more interesting than it would be sober. 

So right before swaggering off and just after he’d thrown on his customary layers and fixed his favorite pistol with the showiest elemental effect to his holster, he’d poured himself some of the alcohol in his favorite crystal pony glass, admiring the contents as they swirled from pink to blue to purple and popped with sparkles before he tossed it back down his throat. 

By the time the internship program directors opened the meeting room doors and welcomed him with their fakey smiles Jack was already feeling it. The alcohol had long started to numb pleasantly in his stomach, and as he slurred a “hello” he felt hyper aware of the teeth in his mouth and how his slick tongue rubbed over every single one like he was licking he rim of a warm porcelain mug. He nearly ran into the water cooler, managing to pull himself away only after he rubbed his chest up against the plastic jug, the condensation suddenly one hundred percent more impressive than he remembered. 

Some plucky interns came forward to gush his praises but Jack barely heard them as impossible wind rushed in his ears. The rest remained seated at the little circular tables set up in front of the stage.

Oh hell. His speech.

Somehow, Jack managed to slur his way through what passed for the subsequent “speech,” even as he lilted off to side halfway through and started talking more to the small statues of himself flanking the stage rather than towards the actual audience. He ended it unexpectedly as catering suddenly entered with the carts of food, drawing him away from the stage as the scent of fresh-baked pastries and piles of creatively carved fruit sent him stumbling towards the sudden buffet. 

The interns seemed even more intimidated by him after his “speech,” with most of them sitting at their table and making small talk amongst each other. Considering Jack had already forgotten half of what he’d said to them, he didn’t exactly blame them, but he was far more concerned with stuffing his face with cheese-stuffed pretzel rolls and loving the way the salt tingled on his tongue and the taste set his senses aflame than he was dithering over whether the interns were comfortable around him. He probably wouldn’t see ninety-nine percent of them again. 

He packed his plate high with pastries and fruit and filled up a cup of steaming coffee, nearly burning his tongue as he sucked it down. The colors in the room popped, bright yellow and white shimmering like the distant sun as Jack ambled over to the head table, slapping his overladen plate down and nearly spilling his coffee all over the rented linens. 

The internship program director was droning in his left ear, and the similarly sycophantic event coordinator was needling him on the right with a breathy tone that sounded like she was always on the verge of laughing. Jack swayed softly with the pulse of the colors running on the wall, eyes sweeping over the clustered tables of interns.

Most of them seemed the usual fodder the program brought in each year. Dressed in the same kind of typical honeycomb livery that looked ripped right from the cover of the last Hyperion fashion catalogue with little personality. Conformity was usual fine amongst the lower ranks but Jack was trying to find this whole affair at least a little bit entertaining.

As Jack watched the interns’ faces started to blur into their clothes and each other, like crayons smeared on a hot stovetop. Their scents too, mingled together in a big ball of sharpened but otherwise unremarkable sensation. They were losing out to the half eaten pretzel roll and the congealed jam inside of the turnover he’d been absently stabbing at with his fork. 

The whole group was dull and homogenous as cream soup. Ho-hum. _Boring_. Even the drugs didn’t make any of them pop out, which was a real frikkin’ disappointment because did you hear how much money he’d spent on them? God, all the new meat _sucked_. 

At least, that’s what Jack’s addled brain told him up until the doors to the orientation banged open and a man jogged his way past the guards, flashing his intern ID quickly before he bumbled his way to the table on the upper left. 

The program director said something unintelligible but notably disapproving as the young man slid into his seat. He tutted and looked at Jack pointedly, but the CEO was ignoring him even harder than he’d been ignoring him before, because just as the kid had walked into the room Jack had been hit by a tidal wave of _scent_ that had nearly knocked him out of his chair and flat on his ass. 

“ _Holy crap_.” He only realized he’d said it aloud when a lump of half-chewed croissant fell with a wet slap on his plate. The event coordinator on his left gasped like a landed fish with a lungful of helium as he thumped his clenched fist against the table, eyes wide and nostrils twitching madly. 

But it was more than _just_ the smell. The kid was the full package, the belle of the ball, turning other intern heads quick like their necks were greased rakk oil as he walked by. Jack ogled him openly, marveling at just how _struck_ he was by the kid’s presence. The way he stood out from all the other unremarkable melty-faces with features Jack could see clear as day even as his vision wobbled all around him. Chestnut hair softly combed back. Eyes of two different colors. Pops of blue and red that stood out from the milieu of charcoal and gold. 

Jack’s nose picked up on scent markers that vaguely identified the kid as omega, but despite his recent predisposition away from omegas and ensuing interest inwards to members of his own endotype the magnetic allure only grew stronger with each nanosecond. 

How did the kid get to be that handsome? Holy hell. Jack’d never seen a face with such pink cheeks and fine skin look so handsome. So masculine. 

So “everything that Jack could have asked for to bump up this boring-ass affair and more.”

Jack followed the omega all the way to his seat, not at all caring how openly he was staring. His eyes refused to focus on anything else, anyway, so he kept on staring, flitting over every little detail he could make out across the main floor of the meeting space. He noticed the tattoo on his neck before the little round disc of the port set into the kids temple, both items of note that piqued his delirious interest even further. So the heterochromia was unnatural, but that made it all the more fascinating. Jack had been briefed about recent advances in ECHOeye technology and while the exact mechanics of it were a little abstract, he understood enough to get how much of an achievement it was. And how much of a badass this kid must be to get all that surgery and _live_.

Jack was more than piqued now. He leaned forward against the table, chest pressing into the edge as he continued to watch.

The omega’s ECHOeye swept the room in a way that he probably thought was subtle, and probably _was_ subtle to anyone who wasn’t an apex alpha high out of his mind and feeling things three times as intensely as he used to. Jack wondered if he noticed that the CEO was staring right at him with an unhealthy amount of interest and what he might think of that. 

Aside from the scan he seemed busy talking to a little dude next to him with a patchy beard and a smattering of pimples around the mouth. Jack’s eyes narrowed, blowing annoyed breath through his lips. Was this kid really going to ignore the molten pot of scent and sex that was _the_ Handsome Jack? That seemed really unlikely. Maybe he just didn’t think he could get any. 

Little did he know Jack was already more than willing to give him anything he wanted. The omega’s scent was starting to spread through him like an infection, twisting with the drug and birthing a whole new sense of euphoria than tingled all the way down into his stomach and lower, lower, _lower_.

Jack dropped his head, staring in sudden surprise between his legs at the bulge pushing out against his pants. _Oh_ _crap_. When did that get there?

He’d never gotten hard at one of these orientations before. Not even when the old program director with the big jugs had spilled mimosa all over her blouse. 

Jack shook his head, snuffling. 

_Ugh._ Must be the damn intern’s fault. Him and his stupid scent.

…Or maybe the drug had some aphrodisiac effects. Even so that scent probably wasn’t helping!

Jack had half a mind to just strut over and rub his crotch in the omega’s face and dare him to do something about it. Now that could lead to some fun. The program director’s would probably be mad at him, but they were probably already mad at him considering how _obviously_ high he was and how he’d already butchered his speech. Not that they could do anything about it if they wanted to keep their limbs attached. 

He could do it. After all, Jack had always been the forward type. Subtlety was for people who weren’t as rich and charismatic as he was. Any omega would consider himself lucky to be the center of Jack’s attention. Especially one amongst such an otherwise disposable, nondescript group of interns.

Though perhaps that worked to the kid’s benefit, because the stunted crop made him stand out just as his tattoos and ECHOeye did.

But the omega’s smell was in and of itself, extraordinary, and not just in comparison to the muddy, pedestrian scents trying desperately to cloud out the kid’s like they were jealous. It drifted like smoke and smelled like someone burning incense of a thing formerly sweet and simple. 

_Aw, screw it._

Jack stood up right in the middle of the program director’s droning monologue, cutting him off as he knocked his chair to the floor and stomped around the head table. Interns squeaked and practically dove out of his way as he wove between their chairs, stalking over to the leftmost table where the omega in question had looked up, spluttering coffee between his lips as Jack marched right up to him and banged both hands down on the table, jostling the plates and silverware with a violent rattle. 

One of Jack’s eyelids fell half closed as he raised a finger right in the omega’s face, interrupting him as he tried to wipe his mouth with a napkin. The young man’s eyes were wide, a bitter little whiff of fear entering his scent as he pressed himself hard against the back of his chair. But that little instinctive cower just made it all the more enticing. Jack grinned, teeth glistening as he swayed slightly, finger waggling right under the omega’s nose. 

“Kiddo, I smelled you from across the room, and I gotta tell ya, you have the _best_ scent in the history of scents.” 

The omega stared at him in a moment that lasted so long that Jack wondered if he’d accidentally broken time, before letting out a confused noise somewhere between a whine and a babble with a couple of intelligible words maybe scattered between the two points, but whatever he said didn’t matter because the aura of heat and smell Jack could feel radiating off of the omega’s body drew his hands like magnets and he grabbed the smell by the shoulders and hoisted it up like it was made of nothing. 

Jack practically dragged the omega out of his chair, surprised to find he stumbled to a height a few inches tall than him. Usually Jack went for lays he could _literally_ lord it over,but the kid’s scent was just magnificent enough to make him overlook it. 

“Oh god yes, _yes_ , dance with me, babe, I wanna dance with the way you _smell_ ,” Jack moaned as he stumbled around in little circles, pressing his face closer to the shaken omega. If he weren’t high as a satellite maybe he’d be a little more conscious of the fact that he was practically waltzing like somebody’s blitzed uncle at a wedding, with someone he’d never even met before. As it were, he was really hitting a stride with these drugs and as the rest of the orientation room fell away like the walls had suddenly been jettisoned into space he buried himself right into the warm, comforting smell in the nook between the omega’s neck and the collar of his shirt. 

“ _Gooood,_ pumpkin, I just wanna cut open your cute little tummy and wrap your skin around me like a blanket and go to bed,” Jack moaned as he wound his arms about the omega’s body in an unescapable hug. He let out a strangled little noise full of emotions Jack still couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

“Tell me your name, I wanna know, I gotta know.”

This time, when the omega spoke, Jack could make out the words. 

“It…it’s Rhys. Rhys Somer—“

“ _Rhys!_ ” Jack practically shouted in the omega’s ear before starting to repeat his name, each time in a different register. “Rhys. R—hys. _Rhyyys.”_ He guffawed loudly at his own singsong trill as soon as he was done stringing out that last syllable. 

“I love it. Love it. You got a name just as bouncy as your booty.”

“…My booty?”

Jack clapped his hands on Rhys’ ass like they were a pair of drums.

“Your _booty_.”

Rhys’ entire body smelled like candy. Jack wondered if he could break off a piece if he bit hard enough. He dropped his head back against the crook between the omega’s shoulder and neck and settled for licking the circular tattoo stamped on his skin. 

He rolled his eyes up to his eyebrows, nearly losing them back into his skull.

“The walls are melting, kiddo. Don’t worry about it. Doesn’t _usually_ happen here n’ Helios.” He mumbled the words into the omega’s flesh so only he and Rhys could hear. Something heavy and reassuring and a little scared patted against his back. 

“Okay, Handsome Jack sir.” 

_Hmm_. Rhys’ voice was nice, but it was starting to make him feel a little bit dizzy. He snorted, huffed. Shook his head. Nothing helped. 

“Hah…wow…guess what…time’s starting to stand _stiiiiiill.”_ Jack’s alcoholic breath blazed over Rhys’ ear as he whispered. 

“I….it sure is.”

“You know…you know, Rhys, _Rhys_ , I know something we can do if…if…we _really_ wanna make time stand still.”

Jack clapped his hands on Rhys’ butt in emphasis, the flesh rebounding like a plucked string.

“…It’s _sex_.”

“Oh my go—“ Anything further Rhys might have said was lost as his vision was suddenly swimming more violently than before, like Jack’s brain had totally disconnected from his body and left his eyes to make do with what remained. Jack tumbled head over heels into a spinning nebula of sparkling colors and cascading curtains of light, and the last thing he grasped at before getting completely lost is that damn scent. 

* * *

Jack would wake up later on in the med-bay with a killer headache and a nurse feeding detoxifier through an IV into his wrist, and even though he felt like crap and didn’t want to do anything but sleep for the nest twenty-four hours, the scent that lingered on his sweater when he brought it up to his nose had him smirking in memory.

“What are you smiling at, sir? Are you feeling better?” The doctor questioned Jack’s expression as he checked the levels of drug still in Jack’s system. The alpha rubbed the yellow fabric between his fingers, happy to find the omega’s scent already soaked as thickly as his own, a pleasant stain.

“Nothing, doc. And I’d feel a lot better if you got me something for this headache ‘fore my skull splits open.”

Jack kept on smiling as the doctor busied himself grabbing him two pills and a cup of water. He knocked them back with unusual good humor, keeping his sweater ridden up and bunched against his chest just for the sake of that smell. 

Jack really hoped that intern survived long enough for them to meet again someday—maybe even when he was sober.


End file.
